The final 6 stanzas
Her sorrow sore she sought to quell, through Kerstijd’s long cold night,
The thought her words had driven him, and sent him far from sight,
With solstice bridged, the lengthened days cast light upon her doubt,
Her thoughts returned to Orval’s well, to leaping, silver trout,
She turned from chapel saints to woods, and whispered ancient prayer,
To gods of wing and running spring, for sign and guidance there,
And then for him the sun shone through
Lentetijd kwam nigh,
Celandine shone yellow-bright; he felt its beauty through,
And the Buse cried, "Aleidis,"
Beech broke forth in chartreuse green,
and Reynout saw through Ivy's screen,
Through forest light o'er bluebells' scent, the cry rang clear and knelled
The Buse flew true through beuken boughs to sit upon his perch
An eiken rest by Grasdell green to witness paths converge
What winter held in silence long was shaken, loosed, dispelled
De wilde man stepped calmly in to clearing green and light
And spied Aleidas brought near through buzzard's call and flight
She saw his eyes, the shoulders set and on his lips that grin
She loved before, in milder days, that tore her heart within
Reynout knew then his torments paled, her suffering so real
And prayed to those who soar above to salve their lorn ordeal
They turned from out the clearing’s hush, from green and broken light,
No vow was sworn, no pledge remade, no future held in sight,
The path ran on through trampled fern, through root and stone and stream,
They walked as those who know the cost of all that might yet be,
Together by side they took the road that bent towards hearth and field,
With nothing proved, with nothing sealed, save what steps would reveal.
The Buzzard kept its course through and over tree,
knowing nothing of the weight it bore.
What was taken was not love,
only a circle shaped by human hope.
Pain came not from wing or claw,
but from the thought that gold was love.